WHEN IT was first developed there were high hopes for Portmore, the city "across the waters" as it was called, now fast becoming a blighted community plagued with a number of major problems. Some of them go back to poor original town planning which clustered too many small, low-income units into too small a land area. Roads were badly designed - too narrow and ending in cul-de-sacs which makes access by police and emergency vehicles difficult.
But even more egregious has been illegal overbuilding by residents in a wild 'keeping up with the Jones' syndrome. Many units now have an extra storey and additions to the structure are built right up to the boundary line on both sides of the lots.
Except for Edgewater, where individuals rather than developers put up houses, the original middle-class character of Portmore has deteriorated, in many areas like Braeton, infested with criminals and extremely dangerous. This is reflected in the murder rate for the South St. Catherine Police Division encompassing Portmore which stands at 67 for the year to date.
Superintendent Glenford Hudson has promised extra police bicycle and motorbike patrols, better able than motor cars to contend with the terrain, but he has already sounded a note of warning that these cannot long be sustained because his division is stretched thin.
To add to Portmore's woes there are problems with the water supply, polluted as it is with a black sludge which is clogging up the water meters and which is a serious matter if the dramatic photograph featured on the front page of The Sunday Gleaner is anything to go by. Drains and canals are not properly cleaned so that for long stretches of the year there is a plague of mosquitoes. In certain areas of Portmore, sleep is disturbed by blasting sound systems, especially on weekends, the police apparently unable or unwilling to do anything about the nuisance.
Portmore broke new ground as the first municipality directly electing its Mayor. As such it is being watched as a model for new approaches in local government. It would be unfortunate if increasing crime should hamper its social and political development.
The fateful question remains can Portmore be restored to respectable middle-class status or will it become just another ghetto community?
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
